This disclosure relates to television advertising.
Viewing information about creatives, e.g., television advertisements, presented by display devices, e.g., televisions, can be collected by viewing surveys in which members of a viewing population provide information about their viewing patterns; or by viewing devices, e.g., set top boxes, that automatically collect and transmit viewing pattern information to a collection entity. For example, for multiple airings of a particular creative, the number of times the creative was presented (impressions) can be determined based on anonymized viewing information collected through viewing surveys and/or viewing devices, and creative airing information (e.g., creative airing times and corresponding airing channels). To gauge the exposure of the creative or advertising campaign, e.g., a group of related creatives, to the viewing population advertisers look to viewership metrics such as impression figures, the number of times a particular device was used to present the creative (“device frequency”); and, for each unique device frequency (or group of unique device frequencies), the number of devices having that unique device frequency (“frequency specific reach value”); collectively referred to as “exposure data.”
Typically, the viewing information collected from the viewer surveys and/or the viewing devices represents the viewing patterns of only a fraction of the viewing population. When viewing information is available only from a sample group of the viewing population, exposure data for the entire viewing population can be estimated based on the exposure data derived from the known viewing information of the sample group. Such estimation provides advertisers a more complete representation of the actual exposure of the creative. However, the accuracy of the estimated exposure data for the viewing population is dependent on both the accuracy of the exposure data for the sample group and the technique employed to estimate the data from the sample group to the viewing population.